


The Commuter Rail

by Order_Of_The_Forks



Category: The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals - Team StarKid
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Bill is mentioned - Freeform, Complete, Emma deserved better ok this is me rectifying that, F/M, No Apotheosis AU, Paul Matthews x potato salad, Plus some random folks I made up, TGWDLM, completely self-indulgent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-27 03:24:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18295871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Order_Of_The_Forks/pseuds/Order_Of_The_Forks
Summary: Every morning at 7:30 Paul Matthews took the train to work.On at Sycamore Highlands, off at Central.There was a woman who always sat across from him.She was his favorite part.





	1. Maybe Together We Can Get Somewhere

**Author's Note:**

> this chapter was written to (and can be read to) Fast Car- Tracy Chapman

Every morning at 7:30 Paul Matthews took the train to work. 

On at Sycamore Highlands, off at Central.

He liked the routine of it. He liked getting in the third car and sitting in the same seat and doing the New York Times crossword puzzle. He liked saying “good morning” to Carla when she took his ticket. 

There was a woman who always sat across from him. 

She was his favorite part.

He liked that the woman, like he did, wore the same thing every day. A collared white blouse and black shorts. In the winter, she wore dress pants instead and a too-large ski jacket with worn out elbows. 

Every day she wore her hair up. Paul looked forward to seeing what she would do with her hair every morning. 

She had a botany textbook that she would balance on her lap and make sticky note tabs in the margins of. 

The woman never spoke to Paul and Paul never spoke to the woman.

They just went about their lives on the opposite sides of the car. 

They interacted only once. The woman had headphones in and they were nearing her stop, so when they arrived and she made no moves to leave, Paul leaned over the aisle, waved to get her attention, and pointed to the sign announcing their arrival. She mumbled a quick “thanks” and scrambled out of the car before the doors shut behind her. 

On December 16th the Starbucks across the street from Paul’s office was closed for renovations, so Paul pulled his jacket tight and walked the extra block to Beanie’s, the pretentious, overpriced coffee shop that everyone hated. 

Paul had only been to Beanie’s a few times before. It had the kind of decor that made you feel like you had walked into the bedroom of a high schooler who had decided to make their room seem more “mature.” 

There was only one barista on duty, a woman who made coffee with a comfortable frown etched into her face. She wore the same white shirt and black pants Paul had seen every morning on the train. 

As he waited for his coffee, Paul learned that the woman on the train’s name was Emma. He learned that she was an overworked barista who was quick to gripe about her job. Paul liked learning things about the mystery woman.

It was over that shitty cup of coffee that Paul decided he wasn’t going to Starbucks anymore.

Over weeks of small black coffees and hundreds of small interactions Paul learned that she had lived in Hatchetfield her whole life, that she had backpacked in Guatemala, that she was studying botany.

And Paul shared things too. That he worked at the office down the street, that he hated musicals with a burning passion.

Coffee turned into coffees. Emma would time Paul’s arrivals for her own break and pour herself a technically illegal cup and they would sit in the corner table and talk.

They talked about the train. About Carla who took tickets. About the city needing to clean the stations better. 

On March 1st they ditched the coffee and went across the street to the sandwich shop that was always full of teenagers skipping school. It was a cramped, garish little place. Emma teased Paul for getting egg salad. 

They talked about high school. Emma had gone to Hatchetfield High, Paul to Sycamore. Emma was in Brigadoon her junior year.

Emma picked tomatoes off of her sandwiches.

They started a new routine- every morning, when Emma got on the train at West Hatchetfield station, they sat not across the aisle, but next to each other. Paul asked Emma about tough words on his crossword. Emma made Paul run flash cards with her about pollination and greenhouse gases and native plants.

On Paul’s birthday, Emma gave him an egg salad sandwich. 

That day, on the train, as they awkwardly tried to split the sandwich without a knife, Paul asked Emma if she might want to see a movie with him sometime.

Emma had egg salad on her chin and said that she’d be honored.

They took the train to the movies and in the darkness of the movie theater, they sat shoulder to shoulder in comfortable silence.

Emma hogged the armrest but Paul didn’t mind. 

On November 20th, 339 days after they met at Beanie’s that first time, Emma got a notice for eviction. Paul learned that she lived in a cramped apartment above a guitar shop with two other roommates, and Hatchetfield rent is hell for anyone, much less a waitress, a Walmart cashier, and a barista, even in the shitty part of town. 

So Paul offered for her to come stay with him. At least, until she found a more permanent solution. That’s what he said.

And Emma almost cried, but she didn’t. 

She just hugged Paul tight and didn’t let go, not for a long time.

Paul didn’t live in a mansion or anything. Just the top floor of a little two-family house in a development on the outskirts of town. He had to share a washing machine with the family downstairs, a young couple with a toddler. The only really nice thing about the house was the tiny balcony in the back, a sad cement ledge jutting out from the side of the building looking out over the street. 

When Emma saw the house she cried for real. She didn’t stop sniffling the entire time Paul was showing her the office he had turned into a bedroom for her or the laundry room or when she was being introduced to the family downstairs. 

As the sun began to sink below the roofs of Hatchetfield, Paul found Emma sitting on the balcony, her legs dangling over the side and her face pressed against the railing. 

Paul sat down next to her.

The slats on the guardrail were too far apart to be safe, part of the reason the other family took the downstairs. They didn’t want baby Tyler falling into the driveway. But they were perfect for sticking your legs through the gaps and waving your bare feet in the cool night air. 

As soon as Paul sat down Emma began talking and didn’t stop. 

Talking about Guatemala and little raccoon things that get into shit whose name Paul didn’t quite get. About her sister, Jane, who had her whole life planned out. About what Jane would think of her if she could see her now. Thirty, washed up, a barista who just got evicted. How she was squandering everything that Jane never got. 

In the light of the dying sun, the flyaways around Emma’s face looked like a halo. 

“One day, everything will be better,” she said. “I’ll make an apple pie when it’s all over.”

“Do you know how to make an apple pie?” Paul asked.

“Hell no,” she said.

They sat there, letting the spaghetti Paul made get cold in the pot. It was freezing in the November nighttime, but neither party wanted to move. 

The next morning was a Sunday, and Paul brought Emma to the bakery a block from there, where Steve and Stacy at the counter all thought she was his girlfriend.

Emma just laughed boisterously, the kind of laugh of siblings mistaken for a couple. They got a box of donuts and ate at least half of them just on the walk back to Paul’s house.

There were picturesque trees planted all around from when they first built the development, and the leaves were vibrant oranges and reds. Emma’s whole body swayed when she walked, with her hands in the pockets of her jacket.

Over donuts and coffee they discussed the rent and how long Emma would be staying. She was looking for any other place that she could squeeze into, but prospects were looking grim. Paul assured her that she didn’t need to split the rent, that she had to pay college loans and besides, he had just gotten a promotion, but Emma demanded she look for a second job to help out. 

That night they went out to see a play- just a play, no musical numbers- at the old Starlight Theater. They sat in the back row, just like they had that night at the movies. It is, obviously, very different to sit in the back row of a movie theater than a theater theater, but traditions are traditions.

Besides, neither of them really cared what the play was about. 

On Monday they both got on the train at Sycamore Highlands. Emma got off at South Station and Paul got off two stops later at Central. At five o’clock Paul got back on the train with hundreds of other people in suits, and at six Paul could hear the train horn from across town and Emma came in the door, glowing.

She immediately swept him up in a hug and say that all day she couldn’t wait to get home to this house, where there were no sports games playing and no grates on the windows to ward off theft.

They had Chinese takeout and Emma went straight to bed afterwards, but Paul could hear Emma singing softly in the shower through the walls. 

That night, Paul lay awake and listened to the cars pass by and he felt overwhelmingly happy.


	2. Dry Your Tears And Baby, Walk Outside

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was written to (and can be read to) 4th Of July- X

For a year they lived that way.

On at Sycamore Highlands, off at Central.

Emma got a job at night waitressing at a fancy restaurant in town, so when she got home at six she greeted Paul with their patented secret handshake (he would not disclose the motions, it was a secret for a reason.) and immediately changed out of her white blouse and into a black dress shirt before heading back out.

She got home late, and Paul always made sure to leave her portion of dinner on the counter. He could hear her coming in- dumping her shoes at the doorway, tossing her keys once in her hand before leaving them on the side table, pulling the deadbolt closed behind her- as he brushed his teeth. 

Sure, Paul wished he could’ve had more quality time with her, but he wouldn’t trade those weekend moments or those miniscule interactions for the world.

One time Emma called him her best friend and Paul could have exploded from happiness.

Over time, Emma slowly accumulated little personal items that she crammed into the little office room with Paul’s shitty blow up mattress. A calendar with pictures of Guatemala she had gotten from some church yard sale. A photobooth strip from that time they had gone to Dave & Buster’s, revelling in the fact that they were two thirty-year-olds at a children’s arcade. 

It wasn’t just the office that became infected with all things Emma. 

Paul found her stray bobby pins everywhere: the sink, the shower, the kitchen counter. They had both found old pictures from their respective proms, and they had hung them side by side on the fridge. Every once in a while Emma would point at them and laugh, usually at Paul and his gangly limbs and too-large suit and his stupid high school haircut. Emma looked objectively okay for a high schooler; the only real fashion crime she had committed were her bangs.

And Emma hadn’t only spread into Paul’s home life. She became ingrained into all his best stories. When he mentioned a movie he had seen, everyone around him asked if he had seen it with Emma; the answer was always yes.

One rainy Saturday, both at a lack for anything to do, they found themselves huddled on the couch, taking Buzzfeed quizzes on Paul’s computer. They were all silly, like figuring out which Marvel character they were most like, despite Paul never even having seen a Marvel movie. Emma would point out options on the screen, leading them to bicker over stupid shit like whether brownies or cookies were better. Paul would forever go for a chocolate chip cookie over a brownie, but to each their own. 

Emma pointed out one quiz on the screen. “Plan your best day ever and we’ll tell you who you’re secretly in love with.”

Emma persuaded him to take it, saying that it would help plan for his birthday. 

So Paul took it.

The questions were stupid, things like “when would you get up in the morning?” to which Paul replied eight am, and Emma called him a fuckin’ nerd.

The computer, a slow piece of junk, buffered for a few seconds before revealing the answer. Emma did a little drumroll on her lap and wondered aloud who the fuck Paul was in love with.

“Your best friend,” the Buzzfeed quiz announced.

Emma let out a loud, raucous laugh. 

Yelled to the world that Paul was in love with Bill from work, or was he in love with her? But that grin never faded from her face, not even as she debated what about her had made Paul fall in love with her, be it her smelly feet or the fact that she never did the dishes.

Paul laughed, but he didn’t say anything.

Because he knew it was true.

Day by day, as they walked to the train, the weather got warmer and the jackets got thinner until it was June. 

Emma’s birthday was at the very beginning of June. She attested it was the same day Nero killed himself.

It fell on a Sunday, so when Emma woke up at eleven they went to the overcrowded park and ate ice cream on the ground, as all the benches were taken up by kids or mommy-and-me groups. Emma got Rocky Road and Paul got pistachio and they sat in silence under the shade of the big oak tree all stuffed with bird feeders, listening absently to the music playing from someone else’s Bluetooth speaker.

Paul had the 4th of July week off from work. Emma bullied her way into getting a vacation, and though Paul hadn’t been there, Emma recounted that she had said something about them infringing on her rights as an American or some shit.

So on July first they drove an hour and a half to get to Milham, where they had a county fair. The 4-H club was doing pig races, and Paul and Emma made bets on which pig would win. Paul won every time, which confounded Emma to no end. Emma ate an unnatural amount of fried food; Paul told her she was going to be sick, Emma said that life was short.

Emma also showed off to a strongman that she could lift Paul with ease, which was a fact previously unknown to the latter.

Paul got home with a sunburn and a heart that was lighter than it had been for a long, long time.

On the 4th of July, the town held a parade in the morning, so they both walked to the center of town with folding canvas chairs strapped to their backs and set up camp out in front of city hall. Emma said she felt like a forty-year-old and Paul heartily agreed. 

There was a float for the “Parents of LGBT Teens Coalition,” and Bill waved at the two from the float. Paul took a discreet picture of Bill with a rainbow boa ‘for posterity.’

Every year at eight, the town gathered on the football field behind Hatchetfield High to watch the town launch fireworks from the roof of the school. It was a big thing; people usually put out chairs and blankets hours in advance to reserve their spots.

Neither Paul nor Emma were big on that idea, so they hightailed it back to the house after the parade. The family downstairs invited them down for a share of the food they had been grilling, and they accepted eagerly. 

Paul finally learned their names- David and Jenny Lewis. 

David taught Paul how to test if a burger patty was done cooking while Emma accompanied Jenny in the kitchen, doing god knows what. 

They ended up eating all together around the Lewis’s picnic table, and Paul was shocked that he had never interacted with these people before. They were the most bland suburban family possible, but in the absolute best way. Baby Tyler was Toddler Tyler now, and everyone gushed over him as he waddled around the yard.

Emma ate potato salad for the first time. 

Paul asked her what she thought and she said she wasn’t white enough for that shit.

After they had eaten, Emma not-so discreetly excused herself from the table to go grab something from the kitchen.

She came out a few seconds later bearing a pie.

It was an apple pie, with slightly burned edges and misshapen latticework on top, but it was an apple pie all the same, and Emma was beaming ear to ear.

Paul couldn’t help but remember what she had said the night she moved in up on that balcony.

He couldn’t help but see tears glistening in her eyes.

That night, they watched the fireworks from the balcony. 

It was the perfect night; they sat with their legs between the slats, their bare feet swinging in the air. Someone in a nearby house was playing music. They sat in silence, watching the fireworks grace the air as the people of Hatchetfield cheered in the distance. 

“I used to want to be a pot farmer,” Emma mused.

Paul took a deep breath of summer air, infused with the smell of smoke and beer and apple pie. “Oh, really?”

Emma didn’t respond for a long time.

She just put her head on Paul’s shoulder and watched the fireworks illuminate the sky. 

“I think Jane would be proud of me.”

Paul looked away from the fireworks and at Emma, who was staring at him in earnest, bursts of color exploding in her eyes.

Below them, Tyler babbled something into the sky.

Paul didn’t quite know what happened but someone moved too quickly and their teeth clacked together when their lips met. He pulled away to gently touch his teeth, just to make sure they were still intact, and Emma called him a fuckin’ dweeb.

And kissed him again.


End file.
